All About Pool Lighting and Waterfalls

Adding a waterfall or unique lighting (or both!) to your pool design can add to your pool’s relaxation factor and overall feel. Lights make the pool accessible for dusk and late-night swims and add a decorative touch to your outdoor space if you’re entertaining in the evening. A waterfall lends a beautiful focal point to the pool and adds the relaxing sound of flowing water to your pool surrounds.

It’s not always easy to know what will work in your pool regarding lighting and water features. How big should the waterfall feature be? What type of lights to use and how many? Here we’ll take a look at some possibilities to consider when looking into a waterfall and lighting designs for your pool.

Waterfalls

A waterfall can, of course, be installed in your pool during the building process, but it is also possible to add one to your existing pool to add to your pool’s appeal. However, if you are considering adding a waterfall when building a new pool, it will make your life much easier if you ask for the piping for such a feature to be included in the build, even if you’re not ready to install the waterfall just yet.

The look of a waterfall can vary greatly depending on how it’s built. If you have more of a modern style going on in your home and garden, you may want to opt for a water wall or a straight, clean line of water flowing out to create a more “tamed” waterfall. If you have a more rustic look about your home and garden, you could go for a more natural looking waterfall flowing from between stones, for instance. Whatever design you choose, be sure to choose great lighting to make the feature pop when the sun goes down.

One last important consideration is the scale of the waterfall in relation to the rest of the pool and garden. If the waterfall is too large, it will dominate the area and make the pool look tiny in comparison. If it’s too small, it will look a bit tacky. Consider as well where the equipment to operate the waterfall can be housed—are there some plants that can hide it from view? You want to be sure that the waterfall looks like it belongs there and wasn’t just stuck in as an afterthought.

Lighting

Your pool should act as a feature in your garden at night as well as during the day. If the pool isn’t lit up, it will appear to be just a black hole at night. With the right lighting, you’ll increase the hours you can use the pool, make it safer, and even add decoration to your garden at night.

Underwater lights are available in surface-mounted lights which protrude a bit from the pool wall, and flush-mounted lights which are built into the wall itself and don’t protrude. The area of the pool that light can illuminate will depend on the brand, so make sure to consult your pool builder about how much light you’d like to have in the pool.

The other choice you have in pool lights is whether to go with halogen lights or LED. Halogen requires more energy to produce higher watt bulbs that will shine a brighter light into the pool. LED lights, on the other hand, can deliver more light with less power compared to Halogen.